


awake, arise

by displayheartcode



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Background Relationships, F/F, Former Angel Castiel (Supernatural), No Beta Reader We Die Like Winchesters, Not Beta Read, Pre-Relationship, Righteous Woman Jo Harvelle, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29066388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/displayheartcode/pseuds/displayheartcode
Summary: The book is thrown out of the window.Jo is pulled out of Perdition.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jo Harvelle/Anna Milton
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	awake, arise

**Author's Note:**

> that feeling when someone else has written a much better version and you just want to write about jo and anna slowly falling in love.

“Five years,” the crossroad demon says in a murmur. His eyes are black from side-to-side, reflecting a sliver of weak moonlight. “Is that how much your mother’s life is worth?”

Jo swallows her grief. The front of her shirt is stained with her mother’s blood, she can still hear the crackle over the radio, her daddy already dead but _her mama_ —her mama bleeding out on the table as Ash struggles to keep her alive. The wraith that tried to kill her already dead before Jo’s able to scream for help.

“Ten,” she argues. The weight of her bloodied knife sheathed to her thigh seems to grow cold against the fabric of her jeans. She knows enough of the lore from Ash’s compulsive searching, the archives tucked in the basement of the Roadhouse, and all of their warnings are the same: never enter a deal with Hell.

But her mama is dying.

The demon pushes against the edge of the Devil’s Trap, the scent of sulfur and blood lingering in the hot air. “Hunters like you are a special case, Joanna Harvelle.”

Jo closes her eyes.

She’s the freak with a knife collection who no choices left, the daughter who can’t stand to lose her mother, too.

She holds out her hand.

-

Jo wakes in agony.

It’s so cold and damp here, There’s no Hellfire licking at her bones, the growl of Hellhounds readying to tear her limbs, a dammed weapon in her hands to use against some lost soul. She doesn’t know where she is, _what_ she is. But the lighter in her pocket is solid proof of something real she can hold onto.

It takes Jo several times to keep the small flame alive. She sees flashes of dark shadows curled by her feet, the dank ceiling of the coffin, a strange ringing in her ears as she _screams_.

Panicked, she slams her palms against the rough wood. Something cracks, dirt spills over her face.

“Mama!” she cries out. “Mama, I’m not dead!”

-

Several states away, Casper Novak wakes in a patient’s bed. Angels are singing in his head, the heavenly chorus causing the blood to roar in his ears. _“Joanna Harvelle is saved.”_

-

Lightbulbs in the ceiling shatter, long wires dangling with live sparks at their ends as the handprint on Jo’s bicep burns.

A red-haired woman casually strolls inside of the barn. Even in her cotton t-shirt and jeans and a navy coat, she radiates power that crackles like a storm in the air.

There’s an avian tilt of her head, a twitch of a hand as Ash’s crowbar is ripped away from him as he slams against the wall. Mama shoulders her sawed-off shotgun, but the woman presses two fingers to her forehead, causing her to collapse to the floor.

Steeling herself, Jo stabs the woman with her daddy’s iron knife.

And for the first time, it fails her.

“Jo Harvelle, The Righteous Woman,” she says. The knife slips, bloodless, out of her shoulder and drops to the ground. “We have much to discuss.”

Jo grabs the nearest weapon, an iron crowbar from the table, and swings it. The woman blocks it with one hand, _bending_ the metal with inhuman ease. She twists it, stepping into Jo’s personal space until the crowbar joins her mama and Ash on the floor.

“What are you?” Jo’s breath rattles inside her chest as the woman’s hazel eyes find the handprint bright against Jo’s freckled skin. She feels too exposed like her soul is pressed against her bones and threatening to break free.

This is too terrifying to be real.

There is some kind of ancestral memory in this movement: of Jericho sounding the call, of the firstborn children of Egypt dying in the night, of burning bushes and men wrestling with the divine. Jo has never believed in angels, but after being trapped in Hell, watching people like her and her mother hunting down demons–

The woman takes a step back. There’s the crackle of thunder, the taste of something metallic in Jo’s mouth as shadows stretch on either side of the woman. The pressure in the barn drops suddenly, causing Jo to stumble as something _ancient_ and _terrifying_ reaches her, an echo of the same power she felt at the abandoned gas station.

“Be not afraid! I am Ananiel, an Angel of the Lord.” Ananiel lowers her arms. “I’m the one who pulled you out of Perdition.”

-

Before, Andrea Milton prays.

And an angel answers her.

-

Ananiel touches Jo’s cheek and a strange sensation fills her from head to toe, a buzzing along her spine that sets her teeth on edge. 

Jo looks up, still kneeling from the open grave of H.H. Holmes. The firelight plays over Ananiel, making her presence almost holy to look at. “He’s not the first, is he?”

“I’m afraid not.” Ananiel gestures over the grave. The bones of a madman burn again until there is nothing but white ash at the bottom.

-

Unknowingly, Jo has started the Apocalypse.

She’s an omen, the canary in the coal mine as signs happen across the country. Water turns to blood, witnesses, and Samhain, the hunters call about demonic cases, two reapers are dead, Ananiel watches over her, Alastair is dead, Dean and Sam are trapped in some prophecy with her in the middle, and Jo sits on the steps of the Roadhouse and watches the night sky.

“Did you know?” she asks, hearing the flutter of wings. Ananiel appears on the top step.

Ananiel sits down next to her. Her auburn hair is pulled back in its usual severe ponytail, her posture stiff. She’s almost eerie to look at, pale-skinned and wide-eyed, making her hair a beacon in the night.

“Is that all I am?” Jo asks again. The rest is left unsaid. _Am I only a warning? Is my entire existence just to be humanity’s downfall?_

“No,” Ananiel says at last. Something in her tone changes. Her red hair moves softly in the wind. She touches the edge of Jo’s hand; a small spark passes between them. “Your value is so much more than this. When I saved you…”

“Yeah?” Jo turns toward her. Ananiel’s expression shifts, something almost human, but it vanishes too quickly. The flecks of gold in her eyes almost glow. “I think I remember now, Anna. When you pulled me out, I remember hearing your voice.”

-

Naomi pulls a silver scalpel from her tray. “The very touch of that girl corrupts you, Ananiel. You answer to us, the Heavenly Hosts, not some mortal child.”

-

Jo sits by the foot of her bed, her hands folded underneath her chin. “Oh, heavenly father…no, no…” Dean snickers in the background.

She opens one eye. Sam passes her a folded piece of paper with a note.

“Try focusing on her,” Sam says, painfully encouraging to witness something holy.

Jo closes her eyes again. She puts a hand on the mark she has on her bicep. She imagines Anna with her navy coat sleeves pushed up to her elbows, the heavenly fire that shimmers over her skin whenever she performs a miracle, her fingers entwined with Jo’s… 

“I pray to you, Ananiel, the Rain of God.” Jo looks up at the ceiling. “The guardian of Heaven’s Gates _, I pray for you to come down here and—”_

But she doesn’t answer.

-

Jo and the Winchesters drag poor Novak in the rectory of some abandoned church.

Angels stare at them with their stained-glass eyes, saints with their robes and painted icons, the statues of the Mother seem to smirk with their stone mouths. With the hosts of Heaven and Hell after them, no one is sure where to hide.

“Can you still hear them?” Jo unsheathes one of her knives.

Novak is dark-haired and has a permanently worried expression. He tugs at the sleeves of the long coat they found in a lost and found box. He places a hand against the wall, fingers twitching. “Yes.”

Jo flips the knife in her hand. _Anna_ , she inwardly pleads. _Anna, help us. I need you._

Dean makes a sound. Novak has found something sharp and his hand is bleeding freely as he draws a symbol on the wall.

“What are you doing?” Sam says.

The air hums with power. The doors to the rectory slam open and a single figure is there with a sword in hand.

Sam shoots first but the rest is obliterated with sudden light and the sound of fire roaring above their head.

Jo blinks. Light dances in her vision. She slowly stands from her crouch, her eyes locked on Novak bleeding, Dean with his arm around him to shield him from the angel. “What the _fuck_ was that?”

-

Castiel and Ananiel stand under a flickering streetlight.

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes.” Castiel— _Cas_ —smiles. “But humanity is worth it.”

-

Jo dreams that she’s in the woods like she’s hiking with her father again. She stops by a creek, enjoying the cool shade, the way the sunlight filters through green leaves and shines over the rushing water.

“Hello, Joanna.” Anna is next to her. Her hair falls around her face in soft waves. Somehow, it makes her look human in this dream-place, the quiet colors and peaceful scenery mute her harsh, celestial edges.

“I gave you my number for a reason,” Jo says.

Anna smiles slightly.

-

The Prophet pulls at his hair. “No, no! This isn’t how the story goes!”

Jo’s next throwing knife lands inches away from his face, embedded deep into the wall. She pulls another one free from inside her sleeve. “We’re going by our own rules.”

Sam blocks the door. Dean cracks his knuckles. “Where’s Lilith, you knock-off Hemmingway?”

“My editor is going to _kill_ me.”

-

They hunt. Ghosts get banished, demons exorcised, new monsters defeated. They’re thrown into an alternate universe where Jo isn’t The Righteous Woman and she and the boys are ordinary people. Sam drinks demon blood. Her mama dies, Anna betrays them, Cas’ brainwashed, and all Hell breaks loose in the form of Lilith goading Jo to kill her.

“The Righteous Woman,” she says, arms spread wide and in the shape of her mama. “No matter what, this is your legacy.”

-

Anna slams Castiel against the wall. Heaven shakes around them. “Brother, this isn’t you. You told me humanity is worth the fall.”

“What happened to you?” he countered; teeth bared. “Your orders were to only pull her out of Hell. How can one mortal girl do this to you? You’re the best of us, Ananiel, and for what? Our father doesn’t care, he doesn’t cry for us rebel angels.”

Naomi’s work is strong, but so is Anna. They fight, angel statues cracking to pieces, their blades clashing in the air in explosions of light. Cas might lack his usual empathy, but Anna is stronger, Jo has taught her how to fight dirty. She switches her blade to her other hand, catching Castiel off-guard with a blow to the sternum, slamming his nose against her raised knee.

Anna presses the tip of her blade at Castiel’s chest. “Awake, arise, or be forever fallen.”

And she pulls them both out of Heaven in a fight, their wings just streaks of light in the night sky.

-

Anna can only hear the faint whisper of Jo’s prayers as she drags her brother, determined for him to remember. She recites the story of his human life, of his twin brother and his niece Claire, the affection he has for Dean Winchester, the kindness he has for the world.

“Our Father doesn’t have a plan for us,” she tells him. “But humanity does.”

A truck speeds down the highway. She holds her thumb out.

-

Jo prays. The handprint on her bicep fades to silvery-pink skin and she still prays.

This time, Anna answers.

-

They collapse in the motel room, finally reunited. 

“One freak with a knife collection, one ex-blood junkie,” Jo gestures with her switchblade. “A high school drop-out and two fallen angels—one former brainwashed soldier and the other half-comatose—against Heaven and Hell to stop the End of Days. I gotta say, guys. We make one Hell of an army.”

Cas mumbled into his pillow about once leading garrisons.

Anna, somewhat unconscious from overusing her Grace, stirs.

Sam and Dean exchange a look. Dean shrugs. He opens a bottle and saults it in Jo’s direction. “Team Free Will, baby.”


End file.
